We got a little bit lucky. It's hard to keep all of your good, young defensemen. He's a tremendous young man who works hard every single game, every single practice. He never cheats in one drill, and that's how he plays.

We know what we have with Boucher, and we know Curtis is a tremendous goalie and got a year off to get healthy, ... We expect it to be a competitive battle between both of them. . . . I'd like to see one of them jump up and grab that starting position.

Ballard's hit tonight was a tremendous hit. I haven't seen that in hockey in 30 years, a hip check like that. We've got to keep believing what we're trying to accomplish here and stay within ourselves, not get too emotionally excited and not get too down, simple as that.

In our game, every now and then we get very lucky that we get a true superstar, great team leader and great person -- and he's that guy,

The ball is a little bit in his court. We want to keep him. He?s a consummate pro and a wonderful man.

We're here for a little bit of a tour for four or five days, just to get together and kind of talk about the season. The players everybody is talking about are all playing well, and decisions are very difficult. No matter what we do, there is going to be a controversy.